A nation's industrial development begins with junior engineers.

Chapter 543 is all trickery and all water!

The night was as dark as ink, and the bubbling hot pot in front of the old well was making a sound. The red glow of the charcoal fire made everyone's faces light up and then dim, but it couldn't illuminate the gloom that lingered in the villagers' eyes.

The usual noise that could lift the roof off has vanished without a trace. Even when someone picks up a slice of meat, they mechanically dip it in the boiling soup a couple of times and stuff it whole into their mouth without distinguishing whether it's raw or cooked.

Even more extreme, some people brought rakes from home and, with a whetstone in hand, polished each rake head until it was snow-white and shiny.

Well, if you don't know what this "rake" is, the second brother in the pilgrimage was holding this, commonly known as the deadly nail-toothed rake.

This thing is a deadly weapon in rural fights; it's not used lightly...

"Once the ancestor gives the order, I'll use this rake to crack open those two blind fools' skulls! Let's see if their lives are more resilient than those 'squatting donkeys' (ox-ear grass)!"

"Hey, are you coming up or not?" Uncle Jiang asked Uncle Jiang Si as he continued polishing the lamplight in the old Jiang family house.

Uncle Jiang shook his head. Before Uncle Jiang could react, he pulled out a carrying pole from behind him and jabbed it into the air. "Put your rake away. Iron ones are called murder weapons, but ours is made of wood. It's just a farm tool!"

"Let's gather a few troublemakers and set up a battle formation at the ancestral temple. Our militia platoon hasn't practiced bayonet fighting in ages!"

Uncle Jiang's eyes lit up when he heard this. He called out to everyone, and several muscular men immediately sped up their eating. They stuffed the double-steamed rice that Jiang Xia had prepared into their stomachs, and then, carrying their carrying poles, they formed a training formation in front of the Jiang family's old house.

Uncle Jiang stood at the front of the line, listening intently to the sounds inside. As soon as the patriarch's angry rebuke was heard, he was ready to charge in!

In the courtyard of the Jiang family's old house.

In the old house's courtyard, a gas lamp emitted a blinding white light, and the hissing sound of the burning wick was particularly clear in the silence.

"Based on the collected fragments, we have identified the inscription as the two characters 'Yan Hou'!"

"Sister Jiang, do you understand what this means?"

Leader Wu took out several bronze fragments and placed them on the table, gesturing for Grandma Jiang to examine them. However, Grandma Jiang simply sat on a small wooden stool, her expression calm and serene, only her fingertips unconsciously stroking the red silk at her waist.

Suddenly, the gas lamp dimmed, and the white halo gradually turned into a dim yellow color.

Jiang Xia pressed a red handle on the gas lamp and pushed it in hard a few times before the lamp shone brightly again.

"Actually, we registered this site back in 58, planning to conduct an archaeological survey after demolishing the city gate. We never expected there would be such audacious people right under our noses. If we don't excavate soon, we're afraid all that will be left are a bunch of looters' holes..."

Leader Wu spoke earnestly, but seeing that his grandmother still didn't respond, he gritted his teeth and took a white cloth-wrapped item from his secretary behind him.

After putting on gloves, I gently opened the cloth bag.

"Sister Jiang, look! The inscription here!"

"This is the 'Ke Lei'! Look at these characters, it shows that the ruins below the dam were the earliest capital of the Yan state after King Wu destroyed the Shang!"

"And this! We haven't deciphered the inscriptions here yet, but based on historical records, these inscriptions..."

As he spoke, Leader Wu lightly tapped his finger, "These inscriptions mean 'Yanhou Palace,' and this character 'yong,' we believe it actually means 'building a city'!"

"If we can find the same objects again, that would be enough to prove that our city of Beijing has a history of more than 3,000 years!"

Teacher Liang put on gloves and touched the bronze fragment, his face full of excitement: "This is what it means to have a clear lineage!"

Jiang Qiu, who was standing beside her grandmother, couldn't help but glare at Teacher Liang upon hearing this.

"So you're just going to abandon your 'masterpiece'? Are you just going to cut off the livelihoods of three villages like that? Are you just going to leave all that hard work lying around unattended?"

"If you wanted to stop, you should have said so earlier! Why make us work so hard all day before you finally speak up?"

"Teacher Liang! The dam's compaction has reached 95%! It's on a gravelly surface! It's not like you said, where you need to add clay to make it take shape! You've kept over a hundred people busy for a week because of your words!"

As she spoke, Jiang Qiu grabbed Jiang Dong, who was grinding her teeth at the two adults, and exposed her small shoulder. Jiang Xia was puzzled and looked closer: the little girl's shoulder was already red and swollen, with a deep laceration etched on it, and the streaks of blood made Jiang Xia's eyes instantly turn red.

"This……"

"Was this made by carrying that clay?"

Jiang Dong nimbly slipped out of his older sister's arms, casually tucking his shoulders back into his cotton coat: "What's the big deal? Sister-in-law Xiuqin's back is still bruised! Mine's nothing!"

That silly girl!

Regardless of what the person in front of her wanted to explain to her grandmother, Jiang Xia pulled Jiang Dong into the house and took out the medical kit that Secretary Liu had given her before: "I said, why didn't you say so earlier that you were so badly injured?"

The alcohol made Jiang Dong grimace: "Isn't it all the same? What's there to say! Boss, what did you get that stuff? It smells weird! It's a waste to put it on me. This little injury can be fixed with a handful of ashes! Why don't you pour that spicy stuff into my mouth?"

"Don't talk nonsense! Stay put! You little brat, you dare to drink alcohol? I'll tell Grandma!"

After disinfecting Jiang Dong, Jiang Xia carefully pulled out a small paper bag from the medical kit: "Don't move it! This is a miracle drug! It can promote tissue regeneration and stop bleeding. It would be a waste if you spill it!"

"what is this?"

"Yunnan White... uh, no, it's called Qu Huanzhang's Panacea! Right, Old Wang?"

"Ok!"

Old Wang, who followed in, took over Jiang Xia's work. "Get out of here, you're being so clumsy, you're hurting our girl!"

"Pah! Do you think I didn't see how you stitched up your comrade? It was such a mess, even a centipede would look better!"

"Why do men need to be good-looking! As long as they can survive! But it's different for us girls!"

Old Wang stretched, brandished a thin needle in his hand, disinfected it with alcohol, and quickly pricked Jiang Dong's swollen shoulder several times. Then, with a casual squeeze, a few drops of dark blood slowly rolled down Jiang Dong's shoulder.

"Your brother is an idiot. He applied the medicine directly without forcing out the blood clots. Do you want our sister to suffer?"

While scolding Jiang Xia, Old Wang gestured with his chin towards the people in the courtyard.

"Hey bro, what do you think?"

"I'll stand and watch..."

"Tch, judging from your attitude towards those cultural relics, I'm guessing you agree with Leader Wu's opinion, right?"

Jiang Xia sighed and scratched his head in frustration.

This is truly an irreconcilable contradiction!

If this ancient land wants to accelerate its industrialization process, similar events to today's will likely occur frequently.

Hey, what did people in later generations do?

Hearing Jiang Qiu's excited voice debating with the two teachers in the courtyard, Jiang Xia fell silent for a moment.

The most representative example of this kind of thing should be the city called Chang'an.

They wanted to build a school building, dug for two days, and then stopped...

They wanted to build a pedestrian underpass, dug for two days, and then stopped...

Especially when building the subway, Line 2, with the speed of infrastructure development, took five years to complete.

The city with the most difficult subway construction—it truly lives up to its name!

Oh, I forgot to mention, there's another city that's also difficult to build a subway in. Chang'an is full of strange things underground, and that city is full of water underground!